What is your name?

What is your name?

Who said it couldn’t be done? Now, this struggle cannot end. We must see lives changing before we close. But when will that be? Sometimes it takes me time but, at last, people are made to understand and then their life changes.

I cannot know the exact number of people whose lives we have changed here. It is in fact incredible. I have changed a lot of lives yet I remember, when I had just begun, I met two almost successful veteran journalists who sat me down, for hours, to give me all the reasons why I may never make it in life.

They had to say it. I looked poor, yet I said I could make people rich. I looked underfed.

The fading black trousers I was wearing left great doubt in the minds of those men. So they concluded that perhaps I would never go beyond the level they saw me.

You are free, I said, to choose the path you are willing to use but remember:

You will be pushed into paradise but also God, Himself, says that you must enjoy what He would like you enjoy here on earth. But is it true that heaven is better than earth? See and believe in what you see only, first.

They went to the same schools, and sat at the same desks, for all the years they spent in those schools. One is struggling. The other one is a minister. What happened? One day people will cease buying news papers that do not cultivate them.

Same school, same place of birth but different lives now. One is in Owino market, and like any other ordinary citizen, singing the song, that this has been the worst year in his life.

We must fight our way out of these terrible times. I fear. I might be crucified and thrown into hell if I delay again, to say all the secrets that are kept by successful men and women in this world.

Lean on me. You cannot go away empty handed. Whoever is heard, today, in this world, used the ways that we all used to step high on respected podiums.

If your work is poorly done, now, think of getting out of the way, and let others pass.

I am going to teach you, and when you meet me next, thank me. A certain force runs this world. God and Satan are powerful and they both work.

Listen, to me. Get a name! You are still very far from the destination if your name did not attract me the first name I heard it. Your parent did not sit on you if he gave you such a name that people hear and laugh or ask what really might be the meaning of the names you possess.

So many men and women follow my incredible writings because they fell in love with my names. Kizza Besigye Kifeefe would have been now off the political scene but because of one of his names, he will cling on you for years. Wait; again, he will come begging you, for something.

Ambitious men and women do not easily give up. In politics the names are funny. In the police force, you hear: Enanga, Kaweeesi, Kayihura, and the arrogant police man in Nakabugu, in Luuka. Your name matters!

The late Nyakairima worked more than them, in the ministry. He commanded the well- behaved army. His name! We fear names before we do it to their possessors. Who doesn’t know, that the owners of Onduparaka FC chose the right name for their club. Villa and Express FC still exist. Their names! ‘Bunamwaya’ could work. Mulindwa changed it to vipers.

In Africa, we have Ennyimba, a football club in Nigeria. Gor Mahia in Kenya. Look, through the world. Bush, Washington, Harding, Thomas Edison, Napoleon, Lincoln, Adolf Hitler. The name Emerson attracted me to his essays. I liked him because he said he was king. Martin Luther king Jr.

They said am Kenzo, am Bafana, am Wule, am Rabongo. Dax Katel. Wizy Kid! Yemi Alade, so nice! See: Baby rich, Baby Deo, these cannot work. Daddy Owen, are you sure? You must be a certain wine to win us. You are Chameleone? Good, I will pay, to see you.

We are better than them. We chose the right names. I stood here, to show you something and, therefore, so many names I have not mentioned. These have worked for their owners. The name you gave to your business will surely lift it or throw it down. Watch out.

Sekka Bagenda is a writer. An inspirational Public speaker and a Sports Scientist